Gaming device manufacturers strive to make wagering gaming devices that provide as much enjoyment, entertainment and excitement as possible for players. Providing interesting and exciting primary or base games and secondary or bonus games in which a player has an opportunity to win potentially large awards or credits is one way to enhance player enjoyment and excitement. Certain known gaming devices use devices such as reels or wheels to enhance the attraction of the gaming machines to players and also to enhance the player's game playing experience.
In one slot gaming device, the gaming device includes a plurality of reels and one or more paylines. Such gaming devices include any suitable number of reels, such as three to five reels, which each display any suitable number of symbols per reel, such as three symbols per reel. In these gaming devices, the player initiates the spinning of the reels by making one or more wagers on one or more paylines. Such gaming devices may have one, three, five, nine, fifteen, twenty-five or any other suitable number of paylines which are horizontal, vertical, diagonal or any combination thereof. The player wagers on a player selected number or combination of paylines, such as one, two, three, five, ten or fifteen paylines and the reels are activated to spin.
After the reels spin to generate a plurality of symbols, the gaming device analyzes the generated symbols to determine if the gaming device has randomly generated a winning symbol or winning symbol combination on one or more of the wagered on paylines. A conventional line pay award is calculated by multiplying the award value for the winning symbol combination by the amount wagered upon the payline upon which the winning symbol combination appears. Such calculated awards are provided to the player.
Progressive awards associated with gaming machines are also known. A progressive award is an award amount which includes an initial amount funded by a casino and an additional amount funded through a portion of each wager made on the progressive gaming machine. For example, 0.1% of each wager placed on the primary game of the gaming machine may be allocated to the progressive award or progressive award fund. The progressive award grows in value as more players play the gaming machine and more portions of the players' wagers are allocated to the progressive award. When a player obtains a winning symbol or symbol combination which results in the progressive award, the accumulated progressive award is provided to the player. After the progressive award is provided to the player, the amount of the next progressive award is reset to the initial value and a portion of each subsequent wager is allocated to the next progressive award.
A progressive award may be associated with a single gaming machine or multiple gaming machines which each contribute portions of the progressive award. The multiple gaming machines may be in the same bank of machines, in the same casino or gaming establishment (usually through a local area network (“LAN”)) or in two or more different casinos or gaming establishments (usually through a wide area network (“WAN”)). Such progressive awards are sometimes called local area progressives (“LAP”) and wide area progressives (“WAP”), respectively.
In one known gaming device with a plurality of paylines, a player can wager on one, more or all of the paylines. One of the paylines is a designated payline associated with a progressive award. In this gaming device, a player must place the maximum wager on each of the paylines to qualify to potentially win the progressive award associated with the designated payline. If the player places the maximum wager on each of the paylines and a symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on the designated payline, the player is provided the progressive award. For example, in a nine payline gaming device wherein the ninth payline is the designated payline, the player must place the maximum wager on paylines one to nine to qualify to win the progressive award if the symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on the ninth payline. It should be appreciated that if the player places the maximum wager on each of the paylines and a symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on one of the non-designated paylines, the player is not provided the progressive award. For example, if the player places the maximum wager on each of paylines one to nine and a symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on the third payline, the player is not provided the progressive award. It should be further appreciated that if the player does not place the maximum wager on each of the paylines, then even if a symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on the designated payline, the player is not provided the progressive award. For example, even if a symbol combination associated with the progressive award is generated on the ninth payline, if the player does not place the maximum wager on each of paylines one to nine, the player is not provided the progressive award. Accordingly, there is no known gaming device that offers progressive awards on a plurality of paylines and provides the player the opportunity to win any or all of these progressive awards.
New methods of playing slot machines, therefore, are required to provide players, casinos, and manufacturers with unique slot machine games, such as a slot machine game with distinct progressive awards for two or more paylines.